


The final stages of grief (forgiveness)

by orphan_account



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-07-16
Updated: 2007-07-16
Packaged: 2019-02-13 13:45:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12985323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account





	The final stages of grief (forgiveness)

**Author's Note:**

> This has references to an OFC from my amy!verse, but it’s not entirely necessary to have read those stories first.

Let's take a walk on the bridge  
Right over this mess  
Don't need to tell me a thing, baby  
We've already confessed

And I raised my voice to the air  
And we were blessed

Everybody needs a little forgiveness  


Sam still sees Jess once in a while.

He’s gotten used to it at this point - it’s been four years since she died but she still turns up as regular as clockwork. Like a reminder of everything he’s lost. And as strange as it seems, he never sees his mom or dad. At least Dean wasn’t added to that list, slipped by on a technicality. He figures it’s because Jess is connected to them all and Sam knows it’s better not to have an army of ghosts following him around.

One is enough.

 

_________________________

He doesn’t tell Dean about it, doesn’t tell Amy that Jess sort of dissolves out of her when the sun hits her the right way - dark hair shining golden and brown eyes turned blue. He’s always said they had the same smile, though. That’s why he fell in love with Jess in the first place.

Dean would have an easy solution - drive out to god-forsaken California and dig up some bones. Sam won’t ever do that; he would rather spend the rest of his life watching people through the haze of her form than set a match to her bleached-white bones.

She burned for too long already.

It’s worse watching Amy and Dean now, same as they were before. It’s like they picked up right where they left off eight years ago, like the time in between wasn’t real. It was all too real for Sam, though – too many pieces lost along the way to pick up and start over the way teenage Sam Winchester had been ready to take on the world.

Now, he’s only ready to take on the next mile down the road.

 

_________________________

Hunting slows down, twisting out in concentric circles from Boston and back in again. It’s the closest they’ve come to staying in one place since Sam graduated high school. Since Dean left Amy the first time.

She’s passed the test, met the Winchester standard. She’s heard the truth – about everything – and she hasn’t turned tail and run yet. Maybe she was just smarter than they gave her credit for.

He doesn’t know that she stopped running when Dean picked her up in sleek black metal disguised as her saving chariot. Since then it’s been Dean who was either coming or going.

Amy Warner is just the grounding point and Sam’s just following the tide.

 

_________________________

Jess never talks to him unless he’s alone.

She waits until Dean’s taken off with Amy somewhere, until Sam’s sacked out on the scratchy coverlet at whatever motel he’s staying at this week. When she talks, it’s like she doesn’t realize that any time has passed. She doesn’t see the new scars he’s accumulated, the lines creasing the corner of his eyes. She wanders around chattering about school and classes; _‘Missy said this’_ and _‘can you believe Carrie got a tattoo?’_

He tries to ignore her but, once in a while, he finds himself chattering right along with her.

When he falls asleep on top of the coverlet, TV stuck on a marathon of Law and Order and boots still tied on his feet, she says, _‘You have to let go, Sam. I’m only here because of you.’_

Or maybe he’s just dreaming that part.

In the end, it’s Missouri that finally gets to him, her scratchy voice stretched out across the country in the middle of the night. She says, “That poor girl’s been waiting four years for you to let her move on. When are you gonna forgive yourself?”

He falls asleep again with his arms wrapped around a memory, never realizing that Jess can still feel his tears on her skin.

 

_________________________

Sam wants to take the road trip alone, but they won’t let him – Dean’s not about to hand over the keys to the Impala without a fight.  
So Sam tours the country once more from the backseat of the car that’s been the only constant in his life. Three travelers where there were once two - four if you count the whisper saying goodbye in his ear.

He’s not going to burn any bones, no salt and flame and run like always. Just a circle of gold that needs to be laid to rest with the girl it was meant for and one last chance to say goodbye. Maybe then they can both move on.

They pull into California sunshine - I-80 West, Sierra Nevada rising up around them tipped white in the distance. The highway winds closer, an unforgiving black snake curling through Death Valley and on toward the end of the line. Amy watches him in the rearview, a twitch in her shoulder as she holds herself back from turning around. Dean glances right, tucks another tape into the deck.

_‘Ventura highway in the sunshine…’_

 

_________________________

The motel Dean finds is almost a Winchester classic - cheap enough to rent to anyone without a second glance at the name on the card. ‘James Page’ rents two rooms at the Sunset Motel in Palo Alto while Sam watches the California skyline. He doesn’t look away when Amy slips her hand into his and leans against his shoulder.

Dean hands him a room key and the empty sky.

Even the stars hide their face around here.

 

_________________________

Sam sits on the bed in an empty room, windows pushed open wide to catch the faintest hint of ocean on the breeze. He doesn’t unpack his duffle but his knives are out on the bed, a shimmering temptation in the flicker of the TV monitor. He’s expecting her – always expects her – but she still manages to take his breath away with silver sharpness brushing ice cold across the back of his neck.

She seems more real in the moonlight, sunshine fades her skin transparent and he can see the world pass by behind her. In the dark she looks almost real, like he could touch the high pink of her cheeks and the soft curve of her belly under a white dress. It’s still a shock when his hands meet warm skin and the beat of a pulse.

“Jess?”

She’s changing now, a brief flicker of flame licking out from her hair before she leans down and brushes her mouth against his ear.

“One last chance, Sam.”

His throat tightens, memories of sweat trickling under a wrinkled black suit and the silence of Dean’s car as they drove out of town – the weight of a ring still in his pocket. She brushes back the hair from his eyes, bangs brushing against his cheeks in the time it’s been since he slowed down for a haircut.

He keeps telling himself that she’s not real – _this is just a dream_ – even as he lays her out on the bed. He remembers exactly how she tastes, sweet musk across his tongue as he pushes her thighs open. He remembers the wet clutch of being inside her, the soft hitch of breath every time she drops down and settles bone to bone against his hips.

_This isn’t real._

It would be easier to pretend the rest of his life was a dream.

 

_________________________

Sam walks to the cemetery as the sun rises, half hidden by the skyline of mountains and development. Jess is a ghost again beside him, one hand twined around the fingers tucked into the pocket of his hoodie. They climb the low hill together, the earth sloping upwards towards the sky like a jumping point toward heaven. Someone has put flowers on her grave, daisies tied together with a bit of string to keep the wind from picking the bouquet apart. Jess runs her fingers across the petals and they drift off in the breeze. _‘He loves me, he loves me not.’_

She sits on the ground, cross-legged even in a white dress, on top of her own grave. Sam pulls the switchblade from his pocket and digs a hole in the ground in front of her. The engagement ring he never put on her finger drops into the ground, buried in the same earth as the girl it belongs to. He doesn’t realize he’s crying until Jess brushes her fingers over his face.

“It wasn’t your fault. You know that, Sam.”

He fills the hole back up with dirt, wiping the blade on his jeans before flipping it closed and tucking it back into his pocket. He lies on the ground, his cheek resting against the cushion of her thigh like he would when she was studying for an exam and he was trying to distract her with fingers and tongue.

He says _‘I love you’_ but she’s already gone, mist on the grass and the sun full in the horizon.


End file.
